Materials Bazaar (I)

I like working with textures a lot, not to mention fiddling with shaders. However, I think basic shaders (diffuse+normals+specular) will do just fine in most cases. Custom materials is something I have in mind playing with for advanced effects at a later time. Currently my focus is on what can be done with the current technology available in Torque. And believe me, a lot can be done. Scrolling glowing console text, waterfalls, hot metals, you name it.

I am looking at ways to make the materials available directly in Torque, or at least make them available in a more streamlined way, without forcing anyone to get a bunch of materials they don't really need. I figured that small packages of, say, rusty grunge metals, or shiny new metals, barks, old wood, ceramic, architectural plaster, damaged plaster and so on will do the trick. Since we got here, Torque for architecture is rarely seen around here so I have in mind to stress that bit too, and make a small project featuring an architectural presentation in realtime.

For now I am trying to streamline the creation process for diffuse and normal maps (via photoshop actions) and create a small project (a rough material viewer), like a library you can walk around and see rows of samples.

Anyway, keep close as I have already a bunch of basic materials packages ready to list in the store.